Our kits include two cleaning chemicals, our own Alkaline Cleaner formulation and an Acid Pickle. The GP1 Alkaline Cleaner can be used two ways: as a soak cleaner or an electrolytic cleaner. Using it as a soak cleaner, you would submerse you part in the solution to remove soils such as grease, oils and rust preventetives. If using electrolytically, it can be used to remove rust. Guides on how to do both are included in the kit. The acid pickle is also a cleaner but is vital in preparing the metal before plating. Submersing your item in the acid pickle removes some soils but more importantly slightly etches the surface, removing any oxides, giving a pristine surface ready for plating.

This kit contains chemicals that are classed as hazardous, so please check out over the safety data sheets and contact us if you have any questions. As the chemicals are hazardous, we use a specialist courier that is able to carry parcels that are labelled as LQ (limited quantity [hazardous]). Buyers from outside the UK should contact us as we are unfortunately unable to send to some countries. For estimated shipping costs and more information, head over to our Policies page.

This kit gives outstanding results on various base metals: brass, copper, nickel, replica chrome. Plating on steel requires a strike coat of nickel or replica chrome before plating with copper.

Copper is one of the most commonly electroplated metals, after nickel. This is due to the numerous applications in which copper plays a vital role as well as the properties of copper and the ease of electrodeposition. A few of the benefits are listed below:

 

• High plating efficiency: Copper has a high plating efficiency resulting in excellent coverage on difficult to plate parts, such as intricate brass castings.  This means that minor imperfections in the base metal, such as pits and scratches, will also be covered.
• Inert in other plating solutions: Copper is relatively inert in most plating solutions.
• Conductivity: Copper has a very high electrical and thermal conductivity, one of the reasons for its high plating efficiency. The thermal conductivity leads copper to act as an effective thermal expansion barrier. It does this by absorbing and distributing stress when metals with two different thermal expansion rates undergo a change in temperature, resulting in fewer breakages. This is especially useful on plastics.
• Range of mechanical hardness: Copper has can range in hardness from properties superior to wrought copper to annealed pure copper. It can be relatively soft which means that the levelling and brightness of copper can be enhanced after plating due to the ease and relative low cost of polishing and buffing.

 

The qualities above lead copper to be an excellent metal for an underplate. Whichever finish you need, it is a good idea to plate in copper first then finish with a subsequent plate of another metal.